Day 10, Sailing toward Port Canaveral

We were greeted this morning by a long wake extending toward the horizon as we continued our southerly track toward Port Canaveral. The seas continue to be smooth and the temperatures are warming up nicely. There is something special about staring into a ship’s wake as you sail across the seas, and the aft cabin makes it easy to enjoy this sight. Another advantage of the aft cabins is that there’s less wind on your deck as compared to a cabin along either side of the ship.

As is our custom, we enjoyed another hot room service breakfast in our cabin as we prepared for our last full day at sea.

Judy was off to her morning knitting class while I headed to the Vista Lounge where the HAL singers and dancers would be answering questions followed by a tour of the backstage areas.

All of the cast members briefly introduced themselves and then Cruise Director Linda opened the floor for questions. Someone opened with a question as to why they used such a bright strobe light in one of the shows and requested they stop using the light. Cruise Director Linda reminded everyone that the lighting is programmed as part of the show and that the singers and dancers don’t control that part of the show. Next.

We learned that this crew all arrived and will depart together and are in the middle of a 10 month contract! That is much longer that I am used to seeing for staff entertainers. The audience continued to ask interesting questions about their life aboard ship, how the audition process worked and what were some of the challenges of making costume changes so quickly. After 30 minutes of Q & A, we were given the opportunity to go backstage and see the two dressing rooms and the hallway where the cast says that most of the quick changes take place.

The members of the cast were spread out backstage and were easily available for one on one questions and discussions.

I met Judy during her class break in the Lido where we both chose the Fish and Chips. HAL’s fish and chips are always quite good and we usually get them when we see them on the menu.

I played my last Texas Hold’em tournament but didn’t make it into the money. I ended up in the money 3 times out of 8 chances – I’ll settle for that all day long. I was in number 3 in the Blackjack tournament at $3500, but with a cutoff of $4200 to make it into the finals I didn’t get a chance to play again.

In the afternoon I attended the Q & A session with the Captain, the staff Captain, the Chief Engineer and the Environmental Officer. In some cases, the Captain will make a brief presentation but today, after they were all introduced, they opened the floor for questions. We learned that during the height of the storm earlier in the cruise the ship experienced winds over 90 mph and 45 foot seas. The ship rode fairly well considering the extreme weather but we were glad to be able and leave that behind.

For dinner I had the Caribbean Pot Roast and I couldn’t resist getting a order of the spaghetti and meatballs which are always very good on HAL. Judy had the Black Pepper Baked Salmon Mignon which she enjoyed very much.

After dinner, I went to the cabin and decided to get to bed early and missed the show. Judy maintained her perfect attendance for every show where we have been on the ship.

Jesse Kazemek, the Beatles tribute performer and Nathaniel Rankin, the magician-juggler-mentalist, returned to the Vista Lounge for encore performances. Judy reported that their second performances were improvements on their first performances, which were quite good by themselves.

• Jesse Kazemek
• Nathaniel Rankin